Pages

Thursday, 17 January 2013

Straight outta Kamp-ton

Straight outta Kamp-ton

I have alluded previously to a day spent map-searching[1]
in downtown Kampala; however, no mere couple of sentences could hope to sum up
the overwhelming amount of sensory input we received that urbandiem.
To be honest, anything less than an infinity of sentences wouldn't come
close, but we didn’t want to look too touristy what with thewhipping out a camera every few
seconds, so you’ll just have to accept the thousand words I’m posting in lieu
of a picture.[2]

The fastest way to get anywhere from Port Bell Road (the
main thoroughfare at the bottom of our hill) is on the back of a boda-boda[3],
the independent moto-scooter taxi service which entrepreneurs run from really
whatever spot they choose to run their services from. Thus, any convenient street corner, sidewalk,
streetmiddle, front yard, or wholestreet in the city can serve as a staging
ground for these crafty businessmen.
Though self-employed, they are always found in gaggles of 2-6, seemingly
so that some can sleep on their handlebars while others keep an eye out for
customers and then steal said customers from the drivers sleeping on their
handlebars; as in any good capital-based culture a boda-boda man receives from
the game whatever he’s willing to give to the game.

Now you might be wondering how
these sleeping drivers (who perhaps aren’t even aware that there’s a game going
on) are able to survive in such a rough economic landscape as Kampala, but that
is actually the secret to their
continued success: as far as I can tell it is so dangerous to work as a boda
driver here (the concept of “right-of-way” is about as foreign in Uganda as
Herman Cain[4])
that the only way to run a sustainable business is to never actually drive your motorcycle anywhere. The implicit paradox here has not escaped me,
lest ye worry; I will do my best to investigate this issue and come back with a
topical and precise economic model.[5]

[1] That’ll teach all you haters out there, a Geography major really IS good for something!

[2] Or not accept it and go read Alex’s insufferably visual and populist posts.

[3] Boda-boda translates roughly into English as “suicide death machine of suicidedeath from hell”

[4] the lack of either hurts a general populace’s ability to truly enjoy life to its fullest, I feel.

Having been warned by Father and
Samuel not to trust the boda-boda due to its aforementioned “unreliability” we
decided to try a different option, the independent cargo-van taxi services
which entrepreneurs run from really whatever spot they choose to run their
services from.These rickety white vans,
printed all around with religious statements and various motivational bits,
filled with anywhere from 2-20 people in a space meant for 1-10, will pull over
at streetcorners, sidewalks, streetmiddles, front yards, or wholestreets;
really anywhere they see youwaving
from.They generally have destination
points, but are willing to completely break route if you are willing to pay a
ridiculous sum of money, regardless of the complaints or time table of the
other riders.I have not yet seen a
bidding war break out between clients; I don’t rule it an impossibility.

Sans map we caught the van whose
cashman[6]
was shouting “Kampala Road” in hopes that said road was actually in/near
Kampala; after an uneventful half-hour ride with my head bouncing against the
top of the van this turned out to be a correct statement (see footnote 1).

We got out where we could see the
skyscrapers, paying the cashman 1,500 shillings each (about $1.20 for the two
of us) before looking around to see exactly what we had stepped into the middle
of. I don’t think I am a good enough
writer to construct a narrative of the next 8 hours, so instead I will attempt
a series snapshots—which is actually, given the heat and overwhelmity of it
all, exactly how I experienced the day.
While reading everything imagine a background of grey buildings and red
dust, intensely black people, and an overbearing sun…

[6] Kind of like the taxi’s hypeman, his job is to get people pumped and into his vehicle by any means short of abduction.*

*hopefully short of abduction

An entire city block (but not a block like you’re thinking
would be a block, twice as long [or half the size] that is, a Kampala block) of
printer shops; concrete buildings all two stories but not a single one the same
height as another; printers and stationary and other goods for making signs and
advertisements and CVs literally as far as the eye can see until the road
wiggles off left juuuust too much for unbroken ocular capability. Sidewalks raised above the street maybe, or a
little lower. Like the street (or parts of the street) they are formed in
hard-packed ochre clay whose edges are wavy and distempered things eroded by
the chaotic variability of water and feet and stray boda-tires. Pits between the sidewalk and street filled
with oil, paper, plastic, fruit rinds, excrement, and things fouler than
excrement; sometimes this mixture runs downhill and sometimes it sits trapped
like a little crater lake, waiting for just a touch more filthic downpour
before it can begin its own journey into Victoria. People pass in every direction, staring at us
for at least a moment.

Walking down a block with four banks on it, separated each
by a storefront or two; the first bank has a guard sitting out front in police
uniform holding an AK-47 with no shoulder stock, the second bank has a guard
sitting out front in police uniform holding a World-War II era bolt-action
rifle, the third bank’s police guard swings a sawed-off shotgun from his
shoulder sling, and the final guard has sacrificed originality for another
AK. People pass in every direction, and
the guards’ eyes never seem to move.

Sitting in wicker chairs out front of a store, drinking a
Bell’s (Uganda’s Heritage, the beer’s label claims!) from its half-liter bottle
and watching the world pass. A woman
comes out with two china bowls of what I assume is food, places one on top of a
public phone booth. A truck drives past
full of beer crates, a man rides on top.
I raise my bottle to him; he salutes back. Beautiful women pass in every direction; they
never to look at us for too long.

We enter a little opening between buildings into a food
market, suddenly everything is for us.
“Yes, come, please, look!”
“Chicken, you no like chicken?”
“Spices, yes spices” “Yes, yes!”
I try my hardest to keep up with Alex but the press of people in this
narrow space is intense and the uneven floor is littered in obstacles. The smells are so heavy that I find it hard
to breathe; piles of tripe and sweetbread on platters buzzing with flies,
neatly ordered rows of whole chickens beheaded and plucked, burlap bags of
beans and rice and millet that must weigh hundreds of pounds—and no way to get
a vehicle into this labyrinthine space—fruit and fruit and fruit and squash and
more fruit; we exit the market onto street again and face the largest pile of
rinds I have ever seen, tumbling from dumptruck onto a raised plaza, ignored by
even the poorest because who cannot find fruit here in the Pearl of
Africa? People surround us, people
engulf us, and though most look for a bit life presses them on.

Not quite a thousand words, but I imagine you get the
picture[7]. By the time we found our map the sky had
sucked all our water out, leaving our mouths parched and skin baked despite the
Nalgenes and sunscreen. We found Kampala
Road, found a taxi, and returned to the Father’s in time for a shower and
dinner. As I washed the burnt clay and
fried skin from my hands I looked in the mirror and realized that my shoulders
were about halfway to my ears; I hadn’t let down my awareness once, not even
with that beer in hand, and my body was still trying to shake off that day’s incredible
and indescribable newness.